A fortnight ago, at Sotheby’s in Paris, the bag Hermès executive Jean-Louis Dumas made for Jane Birkin – the original Birkin bag – sold for €8.6 million. That is the highest price ever fetched at auction for a handbag. The funny thing is, for such a coveted item, nobody seems to be able to agree on exactly what it is for.

“The original Birkin looks as if it might have been found in a shipwreck, with its fraying handles and mottled leather patina and marks from where she had affixed Doctors Without Borders and Unicef stickers,” says Marisa Meltzer in The New York Times. “The nail clippers she had dangled from the bag were still there.” In a video from 1988, the late actress and singer empties the contents onto a table. Out spills mascara, cigarettes, money, a novel by Dostoyevsky and sticky tape – not surprising, perhaps, when you consider the now-legendary story about the bag’s origins. In 1984, Birkin found herself sitting next to Dumas, the Hermès executive, on a flight to Paris, and the two came up with the idea of creating a holdall to hold all the 38-year-old’s stuff.